Wish I hadn't taken that 'just use a shop vac' advice

A few weeks back, a guy on a job site told me I could skip the flue brush and use a shop vac with a stiff hose to clear chimney debris. I tried it on a stubborn creosote build-up in an old brick stack near Dayton, and all it did was mash the soot into a hard cake on the walls. Took me an extra hour and a half to scrape it off with a steel brush and a chisel. Has anyone else gotten burned by shortcuts like that, or is there a trick to shop vac cleaning I'm missing?

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umamoore18d ago

Friend of mine tried the same thing on his parents' place outside Columbus. Ended up packing wet ash so tight it set like concrete, had to chip it out with a cold chisel and a hammer for two days. Trick might be keeping the vac on low suction and going top down, but honestly that shop vac advice is just a trap for anyone without a real rotary brush setup.